Letters

Letters

We love to see organizations such as the Pacific Opera Project (POP) expanding opera and finding ways to reach out to new audiences. We encourage everyone to support organizations like POP by buying a ticket and donating. It’s important! (“Bloody good time,” Oct. 18)

Our adult ticket prices start at $19 (less if you buy a package), and students and seniors can purchase orchestra seats through our Community Circle program for $9. This is around what it costs to go to a movie or attend POP.

Opera has a full symphony orchestra, elaborate sets and costumes, powerhouse singers, a chorus, special effects, lighting design, theatrical direction, choreography, dance, etc, etc. It is very, very expensive to produce, which is why we have expensive tickets. But we, like POP, make every effort to make sure that “regular folks” can attend too.

~ DIANE BERGMAN, LA OPERA

Red meat = Greenhouse gas

Frankenstorm Sandy is one more dramatic demonstration that climate change and its extreme weather patterns are now part of our future.

Although we’re unlikely to reverse climate change, we can still mitigate its effects by reducing our driving, our energy use and our meat consumption.

Yes, meat consumption.

A 2006 UN report estimated that meat production and consumption accounts for 18 percent of manmade greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that it may be closer to 50 percent.

Carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, is emitted by burning forests to create animal pastures and by combustion of fossil fuels to confine, feed, transport and slaughter animals and to refrigerate their carcasses. Much more damaging methane and nitrous oxide are discharged from the digestive tracts of cattle and from animal waste cesspools, respectively.

We have the power of reducing the devastating effects of climate change every time we eat. Our local supermarket offers a rich variety of soy-based lunch “meats,” hotdogs, veggie burgers, soy- and nut-based dairy products (including cheese and ice cream), and an ample selection of traditional vegetables, fruits, grains and nuts. Product lists, easy recipes, and transition tips are available at livevegan.org.

~ PHIL GARGALIS, PASADENA

Don’t flatter yourself

I recognize that your publication is “free,” and that, in some respects, your readers get what they didn’t pay for. Any of them with half a wit would recognize your editorial policy as totally anti-Republican. No objective look at candidates or issues will likely happen between its pages. Anti-conservative invective is what you do. You’re the zookeeper throwing meat to the local liberal lions. (Well, at least you’re gainfully employed.) Even a recent letter from a guy in Cleveland bashing Clint Eastwood as a “punk” demonstrates that some readers are capable of matching the surly tone set in the editorial room.

I find it denigrating that a writer/academic like Barry Gordon treats the noble profession of journalism as a pig-pen. His latest insulting piece on Mitt Romney was just about what I have come to expect. At least Professor Gordon is consistent, even as he makes the wild claim that the Republican leadership is not.

But this letter is not by way of refutation. I have done that a few times before — once in response to your paper’s attack on Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and again in answer to your vicious assault on the character of vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan.

To your credit, you published my rebuttals, no doubt because the price was right.

That Gordon can call his column “Democracy 101” signals his ignorance of how “undemocratic” he is in his grossly biased op-ed pieces. (I have to wonder what chance for success a conservative student in his class would have of passing the course, let alone getting a good grade.)

So, no, I will not bother to point out the personal and professional integrity that Romney has demonstrated throughout his life. Not until he ran for the office of president did any detractor suggest otherwise. And if your paper is out to condemn “vicious” politics, start with your own image.

It’s always interesting to see that when a Democrat changes his mind, he has “evolved.” When a Republican changes his, he has waffled or worse. And when it comes to promising his constituency one thing and doing another, one need look no further than the Democrat in the White House with his string of broken promises. The biggest disappointment of all has been the shattered promise to unite Americans and bring civil discourse back to the national discussion. With President Obama there are always “extenuating circumstances” for broken promises and plenty of others on whom to blame his failings.

This will be the last letter you get from me. “The other side” does not exist for you, so why try to represent it? I will not even bother to pick up a copy in the future. I know you will continue to roll the presses and to preach to the liberal choir.

Advertising will enable that to happen, e.g. your full page of “day spas” and massage ads, with all those provocative young Asian women just ready and willing to serve. (And you think Republicans are macho?) Some of your reporting may be significant — human interest stories, for example — but I hope you do not flatter yourselves by believing that you actually sway political opinion. The best you can hope for is to harden the convictions of those who think as you do and to rein in disenchanted Democrats, of whom there are more than you think.

~ DORIS O’BRIEN, PASADENA

FROM THE WEB:

Re: “Million-dollar question,” Aug. 6

I found this article a bit confusing. Is there an existing contract or document that outlines the Arroyo Seco Guidelines in terms of design — one that you could point readers to? Also, that MWD bit with “usage must support open space and recreation” needs further explanation. “Recreation” is the slippery word here. At some point (late 1990s?) the city of Los Angeles changed Parks and Recreation to Recreation and Parks. Nature took one to the gut on that ruling. Furthermore, how come passive recreation, such as walking for what we’ve been told time and again is an aging population (baby boomers), isn’t given some sort of priority instead of disrespect? And as far as toilets are concerned, why so many in one place and nothing for the half-way point where walkers stroll? There are composite toilets available that can be powered through solar means. No plumbing required.